


Iron in porcelain clothing

by CamilleDuDemon



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Blood and Injury, Caring Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Recovery, Torture, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher), bards have a moral code, lots of subtext and silences, some smut at the end if you squint hard enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamilleDuDemon/pseuds/CamilleDuDemon
Summary: One of the thugs takes a step forward towards him, arms firmly crossed on a rather hairy, sweaty chest. Though Jaskier absolutelyadoresGeralt’s hairy chest when it’s sweaty, this one looks ratherdisgusting, so to speak. The pies rumble in his stomach and he’s forced to look away not to throw up on the spot. To add insult to injury, the hairy guy has got a bad eye - a long scar running all the way from his hairline to his chin, mangling his eyelid and giving the eye beneath a rather ghastly look - and even that causes Jaskier’s nausea to flare up.“You the bard Jaskier?” he asks, with the voice of a man whose nose has been broken one too many times.Now the whole situation becomes downright fishy, rather than awkward. Trying his best to divert the mercenaries’ attention from the overly cautious movements of his fingers as he looks for his knife, he ends up answering the ever-dumb, ever-predictable “That depends, who’s asking?” line.“It’s him,” the nasty guy with a bad eye states. And, merciful Melitele, Jaskier doesn’t know how but he finds himself surrounded in less than a beat, the heavy crossbow squarely pointed at his chest and an unnecessary blade at his kidneys.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 162





	Iron in porcelain clothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alittlelark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelark/gifts).



Jaskier is fine.

More than fine, actually.

He is  _ happy.  _ Elated, honestly. Things are going so smoothly he might even get back at squandering his money, like the good ol’days. A bit of a tasty treat here, a nice bath in a lovely, lavender-smelling bath house there, new clothes, maybe even a spare pair of boots, a nice belt with a lovely leather scabbard for his knife...something nice, celebratory, because he’s  _ happy  _ and he deserves treating himself once in a while.

Besides.

He’s meeting up with Geralt soon, his destination mere days on horseback close, so he’s got all the rights to look  _ fantabulous  _ when they meet again after a fortnight apart _. _

Humming a tune under his breath, he enters a lovely shop and comes out with two sweet pies, warm jam dribbling down his fingers, thick crimson drops falling and staining his emerald green breeches.

Oh, fuck it, he so full on coin he could even toss those perfectly fine breeches in the nearest dump and have another pair tailored, twice as luxurious and fancy.

He can’t help but let out a satisfied chuckle as he finds just the right spot where to sit - right where the early summer sun pools, though cooled down by the nice breeze coming from the Mahakaman Mountains - and have his most deserved break after three days of gigs, enthusiastic maidens and rivers of ale.

Just the life he had hoped to live when he had first left his father’s home all those years ago.

Then Geralt has happened and, well, life isn’t always  _ this  _ good while following a witcher around, but at least they have each other  _ \- they love each other -  _ and that’s enough for him to be thankful every single fucking day. 

It’s still a definitely pleasant afternoon when he starts sucking at his sticky fingers, the jam now cool enough to be enjoyed without suffering a third degree burn on the soft lining of his mouth, and it is still true even when a couple of rough brutes walk in front of him, arms crossed, blocking out the sun that was warming up his face.

He chews on his pie number one with his eyes half-lidded, a single silver of sunshine beating down on his nose and cheeks, trying to pay the thugs no attention whatsoever. There must be a war somewhere, because they look very much like mercenaries, though Jaskier hasn’t heard of any war yet -- still, kings and queens and counts and dukes are always at war for one reason or another, so there’s a chance rumors haven’t spread yet. After all, he has been informed that a minor war was going on between Kaedwen and Aedirn only when he was almost crossing the border, dragging his ass all the way up to Ard Carraigh to meet up with Geralt at the beginning of spring.  _ Quite a lot of springs ago, that is. _

He can’t help it, but thinking about Geralt makes an instant smile bloom on his lips and he’s got the impression that the armed brutes are exchanging a meaningful look while he’s at it.

Anyway, all the staring becomes quite awkward when he’s halfway through pie number two and in a desperate need of taking a leak. Being the ever polite creature that he is, Jaskier tries to huff out his frustration first, avoiding direct confrontation, but -- nothing. The two butt-faced mercenaries - he’s almost convinced they’re mercenaries of some sorts, now, one is even carrying a heavy crossbow, and the other’s got a studded mace hooked to his leather belt - just stare at him with a creased brow and a threatening look, their posture stiffening as he swings on the spot, unsure about what to do next.

Clearing his throat, huffing and giving out generic but unmistakable signs of impatience doesn’t work.

_ Desperate times call for desperate measures. _

“My good sirs,” he says, finishing up his pie number two in a single bite and rising to his feet, sweeping his breeches with vigorous strokes to let all the crumbs fall on the gravelly, narrow path snaking between one damn fine house and a barn. A couple of chubby songbirds eye at the sweet crumbs on the ground but, intimidated as they are by the armed brutes, they fly away without even getting a small peck. “Can I possibly be of service? I should warn you, though, I’m only traveling through these lands, so if it’s information that you seek I’m afraid I can give you none.”

Concise and diplomatic. Geralt would be proud of him.

One of the thugs takes a step forward towards him, arms firmly crossed on a rather hairy, sweaty chest. Though Jaskier absolutely  _ adores  _ Geralt’s hairy chest when it’s sweaty, this one looks rather  _ disgusting,  _ so to speak. The pies rumble in his stomach and he’s forced to look away not to throw up on the spot. To add insult to injury, the hairy guy has got a bad eye - a long scar running all the way from his hairline to his chin, mangling his eyelid and giving the eye beneath a rather ghastly look - and even that causes Jaskier’s nausea to flare up.

“You the bard Jaskier?” he asks, with the voice of a man whose nose has been broken one too many times.

Now the whole situation becomes downright fishy, rather than awkward. Trying his best to divert the mercenaries’ attention from the overly cautious movements of his fingers as he looks for his knife, he ends up answering the ever-dumb, ever-predictable “That depends, who’s asking?” line.

“It’s him,” the nasty guy with a bad eye states. And, merciful Melitele, Jaskier doesn’t know how but he finds himself surrounded in less than a beat, the heavy crossbow squarely pointed at his chest and an unnecessary blade at his kidneys.

Bad Eye orders another guy - a scrawny looking rat with blond hair that reeks of mold and therefore Jaskier nicknames him  _ Moldy Boy  _ \- to search him. They strip him of his knife, predictably enough, and of the backup knife he carries in his left boot for good measure, not even sparing his lute and his  _ hat.  _ His. Hat. As if flapping the thing around would do him any good when he’s got a crossbow aimed at his heart and the tip of a blade pressing uncomfortably against his back.

“Gentlemen, could we just-” he tries, and the blade moves to caress his throat, the guy holding it pressing down harder enough to make Jaskier’s knees go soft for a split second.

So he won’t be able to talk himself out of such a dreadful situation.

How unfortunate.

A perfectly enjoyable day being spoiled by a band of thugs, mercenaries, soldiers, whatever the actual fuck they are, Jaskier doesn’t care.

Still, he lets out a resigned sigh, hands up in an universal gesture of submission, the crossbow still steadily pointed at his chest making each and every escape plan in his head sound awfully dumb.

_ Well, shit. _

Textbook kidnapping. The village, so full of life mere hours ago, is deadly silent, all the streets empty as a young asshole in his early twenties - Jaskier suspects he’s the guy who has held him at knifepoint all along - twists his arm painfully behind his back, the merry band of bastards pushing him towards the horses, neatly tied to the single pole outside the inn.

His own horse, however, is gone.

“Crap,” he whispers under his breath. Moldy Boy yanks at his twisted arm, ripping a small sound from his throat. Jaskier’s bladder isn’t tormenting him anymore, though; he just hopes he hasn’t peed himself, because it would be extremely embarrassing, and definitely inexcusable. He’s only being kidnapped, after all. 

Nothing to worry about  _ just yet. _

When they manage to load him on a horse, Moldy Boy blindfolds him so tight Jaskier thinks his eyeballs are gonna pop out by the end of the ride.

It doesn’t happen, of course. But one thing’s for sure: the light has changed when they get where Jaskier thinks he’s going to be held captive, and the air feels quite crispier now. He smells -- wild flowers in the air. Surely his nose is less sensitive than Geralt’s - Geralt would pick every scent one by one, dissect it, and state exactly how many flowers per square yard he can sniff - but he can say he’s in the countryside, pretty far from any human settlement, and it’s night or late evening at least.

Quite the journey for a petty kidnapping business.

He tries not to panic. He really does. He focuses on his breathing, on the thumping sound the heavy boots of his captors make while stepping on the dry gravel of a pathway and then on a slightly irregular pavement. When he trips over a stone, Jaskier assumes he’s going to be held in some kind of a ruined manor, or an abandoned fort, something secluded and nearly forgotten where no one would ever even think of looking for him.

Now he can panic. Just slightly. Being completely helpless, his knives gone probably forever, means that he’ll have to improvise, and he’s not sure that improvising would  _ improve  _ his situation whatsoever. 

“Where are we? Who are you? You owe me an explanation! If that’s about some debts, I assure you I can-”

The first punch lands exactly on his solar plexus, and it knocks all the air out of him in an instant. His knees buckle, he can’t help it, but a pair of rough hands catch him before he falls.

“No, we don’t.”

Ah, it’s Bad Eye again. Jaskier spits bile and his tongue ends up being, once again, definitely quicker than his brains.

“My, I guess I owe you a lot of coin,” he stutters, gasping for breath. He waits - no, he  _ expects  _ \- for another punch, but nothing happens. He gets escorted inside of a large building - that he can tell because of the poor acoustics of the place - then down an outrageously narrow stairway, and whenever he tries to speak he gets roughly manhandled or pushed.  _ A nice start for a nice stay. _

He gets handcuffed and manacled, the position uncomfortable enough to put some strain on his shoulders already, and when Bad Eye takes his blindfold off he can’t see shit for a good while, the pressure in his eyes sparkling in a cascade of white dots that dance in his peripheral vision for hours afterwards. Once he regains his ability to see, Jaskier realizes he’s in a dungeon, Bad Eye, Moldy Boy and the twenty-something asshole grinning threateningly in the dim light cast by some antique braziers scattered around without a precise order.

Someone from upstairs whistles loudly. Bad Eye, Moldy Boy and Young Arsehole nod in sync and he’s left alone for the night, save for the fat rats scurrying between his feet and nibbling at the soles of his boots.

Hours pass. Someone upstairs barks out a booming laugh, then falls into an interminable fit of cough. Jaskier doesn’t even know how and why, considering how sore his shoulders are at this point, but he manages to doze off, the faint sounds the rats make lulling him into an uneasy sleep.

***

“Hello, bard.”

Stale breath. Onion. Smoke from a pipe. Jaskier’s stomach is barely able to tolerate the smell, and it churns horribly as he gags, a nose mere inches from his own.

As soon as he regains his senses, the aches and pains in his back and shoulders start biting again, now followed by the stinging pain of his wrists rubbed raw by the manacles.

“Good morning,” he mutters, defiantly enough to get punched again, this time in the ribs. Stale Breath doesn’t even smirk at the pained wince that twists Jaskier’s features, his composure remarkable, dark eyes as cold and hard as stone and piercing through him like an arrow.

Now it would be appropriate to panic for real, not “just slightly”, but what would the point be? So he just tries to breathe through the pain and he manages a slightly slurred “Do I know you?” that sounds so blatantly bratty he’s afraid he’ll earn another punch or two. Stale Breath, however, keeps his men at bay and he shakes his head, a foul pout on his disproportionate mouth.

“No. But you know a man that I desperately need to find now, bard. So, let’s skip all the tedious formalities and get straight to the point, now, is that good for you?” He says, plucking at his nails, and Jaskier frowns in response, parting his dry lips just slightly to say something - anything really - but, as it turns out, Stale Breath isn’t waiting for an answer anyway. “Where is the witcher, bard?”

Jaskier really, really wouldn’t want to, but he snorts anyway, and this time Stale Breath doesn’t placate his men when a storm of punches hits his ribs and back, leaving him a wheezy mess when it’s done. _Geralt._ How on earth could someone even _think_ that he’ll ever disclose Geralt’s position like that? Especially in such a predicament, when it’s clear that Stale Breath and his men aren’t looking for Geralt to have a friendly chat over good booze in a tavern. Besides, he doesn’t even know where Geralt might be by now. In Gulet already, perhaps, waiting for him. Or he could be halfway there for what he knows, his solo business always taking far longer than expected to be taken care of, it’s Geralt after all, his life is -- messy, to say the least.

_ Still. _

Jaskier tries to straighten his posture, which is a fucking hard task per se being tied up like a drying stip of meat on a rack, with his shoulders aching for the discomfort and his back on fire along with his ribs. 

“I don’t have a clue, my good sir,” he candidly says and, in hindsight, he should have been more careful with his tone - which has been that kind of  _ fake-candid _ that goes well with  _ “yes I know exactly where to find the witcher, but I’ll never tell a single soul”  _ \- because Stale Breath gives him a fairly creepy, mean lopsided grin, and for the rest of the day he lets his men have their way with him, stating that a nice beating would “loosen up the bard’s tongue” on his way out of the dungeon.

For reasons that Jaskier doesn’t understand or know, his face gets mercifully spared. Through an intense session of whipping, he thinks that maybe Stale Breath has a thing for beauty, and that’s the last coherent thought he can produce before passing out from the pain, the warm trickle of his own blood itching against his ruined skin.

He rouses only because some brute is forcing water down his throat, only catching the tiniest bit of a conversation that goes, more or less, like “pansy boy must drink or else he’ll drop dead before telling us where the bloody witcher is”. Ah, clearly they don’t know who they’re dealing with. By now, Jaskier has survived several monster attacks - thanks to Geralt’s alacrity of course -, a concussion, pneumonia - due to Geralt’s stubborness in fighting off a pack of drowners with a sprained ankle and multiple fractured ribs - and two  _ \- two! -  _ falls from his easily-startled horse.

He can live through some beating, a whipping, and possibly even through having his fingernails pulled out one by one. 

_ Possibly. _

Thing is, he’s not going to talk. And if he has to endure some pain to save Geralt’s sorry ass, well, so be it. Nothing can be worse than catching pneumonia because you’ve fished your already injured witcher out of a frozen pond after he had  _ insisted  _ on taking down a nest of drowners even though he was in a definitely bad shape, anyway.

When the interrogation resumes, Jaskier conveniently zones out, humming under his breath instead of answering.

They’ll get tired, eventually. 

_ They’ll get tired. _

He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the thought that he will, most likely, end up with a knife in his gut when the moment comes, but there’s still plenty of time.  _ There’s still plenty of time to show his captors what he’s made of. _

***

“Ten lashes without passing out, bard, I’m impressed. Never took you for the stoic type, you know? So it’s true that clothes don’t make the man…”

Stale Breath lets what’s left of Jaskier’s doublet slide through his fingers, the soft silk now reduced to a frayed, sad rag of which Jaskier can’t tolerate the sight. He can’t say how long he’s been down here, always evading the same question over and over: where is Geralt? Where is the witcher? 

Sometime during a particularly heated session of “roll the dice and break the bard”, Stale Breath has ordered his men to tie him in a different position, so his hands would still be functioning  _ “in case he ever needed some entertainment during supper”.  _ Jaskier isn’t sure that his hands, now tied to a short chain in the humid wall and luckily not pulled over his head anymore, can pick up a rock right now, much less feeling nimble enough to pluck at the strings of his lute. Still, he’s in a more comfortable position at least, though his wrists and fingers hurt like hell. His shoulders are literally screaming, and his back -- well, it’s a completely different story. 

But he endures.

He endures the lack of food that makes him go nauseous and crave to bite a chunk of fatty meat from the butt of a rat. He endures the lack of liquids, his throat sand dry and his head fuzzy. He endures the constant stinging pain of the long gashes caused by the prolonged whipping, the dull ache of his older bruises, the punches, the kicks.

He’s going through hell for Geralt, because Geralt deserves this and more. He deserves love and loyalty and everything Jaskier has to offer, anything really, even his life would that be needed. 

He falls asleep with a smile plastered on his lips whenever the thought of Geralt pops up into his tired mind. The torture goes on. The pattern never changes. Nor does the question. Moldy Boy becomes antsy and restless and he smacks him on his face; Stale Breath has him whipped for insubordination, along with Jaskier. 

He’s cold. 

How can he be cold? It’s summer. He’s not supposed to be cold in summer.

Unless.

_ Where’s Geralt? _

_ Where’s the witcher? _

The whipping goes on until Jaskier has screamed so much he tastes blood on his tongue from his scorched throat. Even when he forces himself to shut up and sticks to a pitiful, constant whimpering - lest he ruins his precious voice forever - the lashes don’t stop coming. 

He doesn’t give Stale Breath the answer he longs for and, once again, he’s left alone, the wounds on his back hurting so much he considers the idea of begging for a quick and merciful death.

***

The precious answer comes on its own in the form of a very angry, very toxic Geralt wreaking havoc over Stale Breath and his merry band of bastards, severing heads from already cold bodies, cutting off limbs and drenching the clay floor in blood.

Jaskier is shuddering, his teeth clattering as he holds onto the little heat he’s left in his body. And he’s bloody exhausted. The wounds on his back hurt and itch and pull, dried blood soiling his tattered doublet and breeches. For one, stupid split second he thinks that it’s a shame indeed that these garments in particular have suffered such a terrible fate.

“Jaskier. Look at me.”

Naturally, Jaskier complies. His vision is blurry and he has to blink a few times to clear it, but when he manages to look at Geralt's otherworldly, alien face, he can’t help but crack a genuine smile. He’s never been happier to see Geralt’s blackened blood vessels standing out against his chalk-white skin, splashes of blood dotting his hair and armor.

“Ah. I thought you had completely forgotten about me by now, you brute,” he says, his voice a faint, fatigued whisper that grates against the sore walls of his throat. Geralt snorts, still vibrating with sheer adrenaline, and suddenly Jaskier is free again, Geralt’s calloused but still impossibly tender hands massaging some circulation back into his fingers and mangled wrists.

“It took me a while. I’m sorry, Jaskier.”

Jaskier waves his hand at him. He’s too sore and tired now for this conversation.

“Not your fault,” he barely manages, and he gets a low, sorrowful growl in response. What happens next is a blur; he knows he’s walking, at some point, slumped against Geralt’s shoulder and smelling death and guts on him, and then he’s maneuvered onto Roach’s saddle, Geralt holding him steadily while trying to avoid rubbing against his raw back too much, and then nothing else for a good while, only the blurred outline of the forest and the fields, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the minute.

When they make camp, daylight is already fading in the nice pinkish hue of dusk. Geralt dismounts him from his horse with the outmost care, promptly laying out a bedroll and helping him down in a prone position, spoon-feeding him some foul-tasting water - laced with something for the pain, no doubt - and whispering comforting words to his ears.

“I may...require assistance with my back,” he ends up saying once his tongue has stopped feeling like a chunk of dead, useless meat in his mouth and his voice has regained some of its usual steadiness.

“I know. I’ve got to clean the wounds, that’s why I gave you something. It’s for the pain. Perfectly safe for a human, I promise, though it’s strong enough to work on me too. You may fall asleep in the process.”

He shrugs at that. He tries, more like, but his shoulders are so stiff that they hardly roll. When he tries harder, the pain is so sharp it has him gasp for hair between a jolt and the other.

“Hurts,” he complains through gritted teeth. Geralt strokes his hair, his warmth fending off the cold that has permanently settled in his bones.

“Stay still as the medicine takes hold. You’re running a fever. The wounds have started festering, I suppose.”

The guilt in his voice is blatant, and Jaskier would very much like to scold him for being so hard on himself, yet he’s feeling so tired right now, the potion a fuzzy, soft cocoon enveloping both his brain and his stomach in its pleasant heat. He dozes off while Geralt curses and peels away chunks of shirt and silky doublet from the broken skin of his back, picturing the mess Geralt must be witnessing right now. It takes quite some time before Geralt is done with the plucking and starts washing the bloody grooves with an infusion of saltwater and thyme, eliciting small moans every time he isn’t cautious enough with the pressure. Still, Jaskier can positively say he was expecting more pain. He likes this  _ medicine,  _ he might ask for some more before sleeping, if a decent sleep ever comes, that is.

“Thank you,” he says out of the blue. Geralt is crushing some leaves and an entire garlic head into a paste, adding saltwater with a little spoon and working his pestle as for dear life. His eyes too look a little bit unfazed, weary, dark circles making the sickly pale skin look almost livid, though the effect of his elixirs has already subsided.

“No, Jaskier, please. It was my fault in the first place. I should have known I would have been run after, sooner or later. Don’t thank me.”

“Bollocks, Geralt. You saved me. Just -- accept my gratitude and shut up, for once, will you?”

“No. And you should sleep, you’re feverish.”

“Not sleepy.”

“You’ll be in a while.”

Jaskier goes with a mocking “mmmh”. Oh, how the tables have turned. Usually, it’s up to him to patch Geralt up and rebuke him for his recklessness, not the other way around, but he supposes that could do for a nice change. Keeps things fresh, after all. Besides, Geralt is very good at taking care of his mess of a back, smearing the foul-smelling salve on every gash then dressing the wounds like a skilled healer.

The next three days are, possibly, the worst days that Jaskier remembers since his pneumonia. Everything hurts, breathing hurts, the  _ medicine  _ is never enough because Geralt doesn’t want to overdose him and even the herbal decoctions Geralt is always brewing aren’t of much help with the fever. Nights are long and tedious; he sleeps a couple of hours, wails for another three, than slips again into a dark oblivion filled with dread and terrors, and even when Geralt lays down beside him, a soothing hand on his chest to even out the frantic beating of his heart, Jaskier can’t find any peace.

He hears Geralt’s whisper comforting words to his ear. He’d like to say something back -  _ thank you,  _ perhaps, or  _ stay -  _ but he just mutters something unintelligible under his breath, his brow furrowed and sweaty and then -- things happen, he presumes, because when he feels like himself again he’s laying on a  _ real  _ bed, in a  _ real  _ inn and Geralt is slumped on an uncomfortable chair, the sleeves of his good shirt rolled up to his elbows, reading a book with his eyes half-lidded.

“Mmmh -- Geralt,” he calls, his voice whiny and raspy from disuse.  _ How fucking long has he been out?  _ His head pounds but, at least, his back isn’t giving hell anymore, or so it seems.

“Jaskier.”

He scoots over on the too narrow bed, urging Geralt to sit next to him, and after days - weeks? Months? Years? Decades? - of piercing cold he’s welcomed by his pleasant warmth again.

“Where are we?”

Geralt maneuvers him delicately until Jaskier is comfortably sprawled on his chest, sighing contentedly as soon as the witcher starts running his fingers through his dirty hair.

“In a village near Gulet. You were in desperate need of a healer, the fever was too high, I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you were-”

Silence stretches between them for a beat before Jaskier dares to finish Geralt’s sentence for him.

“Dying?”

He hears the witcher’s heart stumble and skip a beat.

“Yes.”

“Mmmh.”

“Jaskier,” he tentatively starts, but Jaskier is quick to press a finger to his lips and shush him. His arms still feel like leaden, but at least he can move them, something he couldn’t take for granted after what has happened.

“I know what you’re about to say and, please, don’t say it. Just -- not now. Can you stay for a while? You can scold me later. Or tomorrow. Or never…”

Geralt lets out the faintest huff. His breath makes Jaskier’s scalp prickle and it feels so utterly  _ pleasant  _ he would ask him to huff again just because. 

“Of course I’m staying, Jaskier.”

Honestly, that’s all Jaskier needed to hear. 

The scolding can wait, for now.

***

“Do you think it’s going to scar?”

Geralt’s soapy hands, tangled in his hair, stop rubbing at a particularly dirty spot on his scalp for a beat. When he resumes with his arduous task, he mutters “I’m afraid it is, yes”, his voice tainted with guilt. Jaskier really, really doesn’t want him to feel guilty, or responsible in any way, so he clears his throat and tries to lighten the mood a bit.

“Then I’ll have my personal scars to show off to your brothers, this winter, at least they won’t make fun of my unmarred skin anymore,” he chuckles. No one has ever made fun of his still intact skin in Kaer Morhen, but sometimes Jaskier feels -- ashamed, although just slightly, that he doesn’t sport any scar of his own. Well, now he’s positively fucked up. He’s almost sure he can rival with Eskel somehow.

Geralt makes a low, pained sound in the back of his throat, his fingers still working on the many knots in Jaskier’s hair.

“Jaskier…”

_ Oh no. No no. Jaskier won’t have any of his guilt. _

“Listen, Geralt. And don’t interrupt me. It’s not your fault, all right? I’ll never blame it on you. But I have to cope with this -- thing, eventually, and what a better way to do so than to think that I’ve earned my scars with bravery, in an act of selfless heroism? If there’s something that I’ve learned from you, witcher, it’s that someone must play the selfless bastard when needed, consequences be damned and all.”

Geralt shakes his head vehemently, although he can’t see him Jaskier can tell only by hearing the faint rustle of the fabric of his shirt that comes along the urgent gesture.

“No. Take it back. Jaskier I -- I can’t lose you. I can’t. I won’t -- I couldn’t live with myself if I was to lose you. Not...not like this. Not because of me.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

“Geralt-”

“No, you listen to me, now, Jaskier,” Geralt says, helping him out of the wooden tub once he’s done with his hair. Wrapping a large towel around him Geralt grabs his hands, squeezes them, nervously toying with his fingers. “Don’t do this ever again. If someone comes demanding you to give away my whereabouts, you do as you’re told and you go about your business, all right? Don’t you ever play hero again. Just...let me face whatever may come. It’s not your job to look after me.”

Jaskier snorts, drying himself up with gentle pats, his skin still feeling raw despite not being bruised anymore.

“Ah, you talk. You’re always playing hero, Geralt!”

“A witcher can do that, Jaskier. But you...you can get killed far easier than me. These very wounds,” he says, making a vague gesture towards his whipped back, his gaze darkening with what could be described as  _ pure agony,  _ “could have killed you. Damn it, Jaskier, it  _ was  _ killing you! How am I supposed to live if you end up dead because of me? How can I forgive myself if you end up dead because you’ve tried to protect  _ me?” _

Suddenly, Jaskier’s hands are free and he’s cupping Geralt’s face, drawing their foreheads together until his nose is pressed almost painfully into the witcher’s, their lips quivering as they share their first kiss in a terribly long time. He feels Geralt’s breath hitch when he slides his arms around his middle and dips his fingertips into the hard muscles of his back.

“I’d be honored to die for the one I love, Geralt,” he whispers on his lips, feeling his heartbeat flutter slightly against his chest.

“No, you don’t understand-”

“Yes, I do, Geralt. I do. I don’t have a deathwish, you know, but...someone must look out for you. Whatever I did, I did it on my own volition, and guess what, I would do it again if needed. Because I love you, Geralt. And I could never live with myself either if something was to happen to you because of me. I’ve endured some pain, it’s true, do I like pain? Certainly not. But. I lived through it. I survived. I am safe now, there’s no need for you to beat your chest like a penitent pilgrim. I’ve protected you -- no, better, I’ve  _ chosen _ to protect you. What else do you need other than to know that I am safe?”

Geralt shakes his head, their noses brushing. A rough stubble coats his chin and grates against the equally rough stubble that has managed to grow on Jaskier’s face too.

“I need you to swear to me you’ll never do something like that again.”

“Sorry, can’t promise you that. But -- I’ll be more careful if that’s what you want me to say.”

“Please, Jaskier.”

“Told you. I’ll be more careful.”

They don’t compromise, in the end. Geralt is too stubborn to concede, and Jaskier is a man of strong principles despite him looking like a desperately wanton sleazebag, like, ninety percent of the time, all untied shirts and unbuttoned doublets though being way past the appropriate age for showing off like that. Still, there’s one small victory for him for the day: he gets to sleep with Geralt, and quite properly so. In facts, so properly that the strangers next door repeatedly punch against the wall hoping to hear their moans and groans stop.

Jaskier laughs. He moans louder.

It’s true, his back still feels tender as fuck, and his ribs have just started healing, but.

_ But. _

He’d walk through another million lashes if it would mean that he’s keeping Geralt safe.

And no, he won’t take that back. 

  
  


  
  
  



End file.
